Teacher layoffs and the real world

According to United Federation of Teachers dogma, there is no such thing
as a bad teacher. Not a one. And therefore, according to the UFT, no
teacher should ever be laid off, even amid an unprecedented fiscal
crisis.

That kind of surreal mentality is why there are
hundreds of UFT members who are paid their full salaries to sit in
“rubber rooms” and do crossword puzzles and surf the Internet instead of
their job. They’ve been exiled because they have been removed from
their former schools because of poor performance or outright misconduct,
but the UFT refuses to acknowledge such failures among its members.

That’s
also why, until recently, the city Department of Education had long
been required to follow a bizarre multi-step process that tookyears in
order to fire a teacher. Of course, the requirement for such a
formidable, lengthy process in order to get rid of bad teachers was put
in place by the union’s friends in the state Legislature. The UFT
believes no teacher should ever be fired.

So it’s not surprising
that UFT doctrine reflexively rejects the idea that teachers who have
been in the system for some time and are burned out or lazy or too
willing to cut corners might be better leaving with their pensions.
After all, those teachers, however suspect their performance, have been
paying their UFT dues all those years, so, as far as the union is
concerned, they are members in good standing and therefore automatically
entitled to hang onto their jobs until they choose to go.

This
hyper-protective policy on the part of the powerful UFT may please union
members, which is what the union is supposed to do. But, despite the
UFT’s implicit belief that anything that is good for the UFT is good for
the city’s schools, it comes into direct conflict with the goals of
good public policy, especially during hard fiscal times.

Mayor
Michael Bloomberg’s dire prediction that as many as 15,000 city school
teachers might have to be laid off under the worst budget-cutting
scenario, appears to be an overstatement. But there will still be
numerous teacher layoffs.

The question is: Which teachers should be the ones to go?

Under
the policy insisted upon by the UFT and therefore embedded by obedient
lawmakers in state law, it’s “last in, first out”: The most recently
hired teachers are the first ones to be laid off. Meanwhile, teachers
with many years seniority are deemed untouchable.

That’s right
and just, according to UFT doctrine. But is it what’s best for the
children who attend New York City public schools? Anyone who’s ever
spent a school year in a class with a burned-out, bitter, boring teacher
knows the answer to that one.

Moreover, is it what’s best for
the taxpayers? With fewer teachers in the system, the taxpayers should
be getting the best teachers for their money instead of being forced to
subsidize the union’s self-serving seniority system that utterly
disregards merit.

New teachers come in with better
qualifications than their predecessors did, and, more important, an
enthusiasm and an eagerness to teach - if only because they have so
recently chosen and worked toward that career path. That enthusiasm and
idealism can count for a lot when it comes to inspiring youngsters.

Some
- certainly not all, but enough - older teachers have long since lost
that enthusiasm, have become apathetic or even bitter about their jobs,
and worst of all, cynical about the children they’re supposed to be
educating.

But the UFT says they must be kept on, regardless,
while the young teachers are deemed expendable. The UFT leadership is
willfully unconcerned about the actual quality of the teaching in the
classrooms. It spins all veteran teachers, regardless of their interest
or performance, as “experienced.”

There’s another factor to be
considered. Senior teachers usually choose to work in schools in more
affluent neighborhoods while junior teachers are typically assigned to
less desirable schools in poor communities. That means schools in less
affluent, minority communities will be hardest hit if junior teachers
are forced out of the system. That’s led some to charge that the
last-in-first-out policy is discriminatory.

At this time of
shrunken education budgets, it’s imperative that New Yorkers are able to
trust the city’s schoolchildren are in the hands of the best possible
teachers available, young or seasoned. That isn’t the case when the law
says if teachers must be laid off, senior teachers must be protected
simply because they’ve been around for awhile.

By no means
should seniority be completely discounted. But by no means should it be
the sole criterion, either. Contrary to the union solidarity propaganda,
making that observation is not picking on all teachers, just the ones
don’t belong anywhere near a classroom.

Mayor Bloomberg, Gov.
Andrew Cuomo and a majority of New Yorkers polled on the issue are
right: In deciding which teachers to keep and which to lay off, merit
must count most, just as it does for any other job in the real world.
The UFT would better serve the people of this city if it worked with the
administration to develop a set of fair and realistic criteria to
determine who should stay and who should go instead of pretending that
teacher layoffs are not even necessary.